/LORDY/ I really gotta make, like, a hardcore schedule or something so I can finish more writing projects on a timely manner. But, either way, this is, in comparison, a lighter chapter…. Kind of. No beta, we die like men.

Enjoy~!

Chapter 14: Off the Mind

Dib's eyes were dry and tired. His head was starting to bop up and down as he fought off the call of sleep. He had almost three dozen tabs open on his laptop and he'd been browsing for hours. He hadn't bothered to keep track for how long, it was hard to keep track without any windows in the lower levels of the base and he hadn't glanced at the clock in who knew how long. His head bobbed again.

Zim was eyeing him in his peripheral, idly fixing the PAK. He kicked Dib in the shin, making the boy jump out of his chair and crash to the floor. Dib took a moment to ensure his laptop hadn't just been destroyed before glaring up at Zim.

"What the hell."

"You're doing something you've chastised me for quite a number of times at this point. Hypocrite."

Well… that was fair, Dib supposed. He forced himself to sit up, lest he took a nap right there on the floor. Even so, the fatigue plaguing his head and body didn't relent when he leaned on the interior walling of the desk. He leaned forward, trying to lessen his comfort just enough to fight off the fatigue.

"I don't want to fall asleep with that thing still here…" Dib admitted.

A little too easily, in Zim's opinion. He finished off the piece he'd been sawdering and looked at Dib fully for the first time. The bags were more identifiable than usual and his head was bobbing significantly at this point. Zim glanced behind him to where the candle jar sat. It was sealed as well as they could get it without opening it up again to strengthen the seal. Zim had covered the lid and seal exterior with a clear adhesive that Dib had likened to resin. He hadn't been that far off, the adhesive was such a strong chemical mixture that Zim had used it to patch the Voot at one point in the middle of space. It wasn't going anywhere any time soon, unless he mixed up the solvent to remove it.

He'd done what he could between now and receiving the last set of parts he'd set Desmond to find. One part wasn't exactly cheap, if it had to be bought, but that was that man's problem. If he couldn't procure it, it wasn't as if it was vital to the functioning of the PAKs systems that kept him alive. It would be inconvenient not having the extra rotors for the PAK appendages, but he could prioritize.

He only had to last until he could get to a Market and buy some proper replacements, and complete the more complex functions such as the space-walk attachments. It was subpar, but he wasn't one to give up on a project just because he had half-assed parts to work with. He'd been making it work for decades, he could continue to do so now. It would at the least let him leave the base without fear of dying within 10 minutes. He could walk freely and without fear for the first time in months and the sheer thought filled him with anticipation.

For now, he pushed away from the desk. He swiveled his chair towards Dib and lightly kicked his leg to get his attention. "Come," Zim ordered. "I'm going to take a break, so you might as well do so, too. We can use the blasted mattress you set up in one of the rooms."

"You're sure?" Dib asks. "Do you even want to sleep?"

"I shouldn't need to in the first place, but right now I have little choice, now do I?"

"…."

"If we're together perhaps that thing won't bother us. Leave it here. Gir is shut down and The Computer won't touch it. It will be fine."

"But-"

"Sleep," Zim ordered. He tugged harshly on Dib's collar. Dib sluggishly got to his feet with a groan.

"Fine… fine…"

Zim huffed in relief. He didn't have the strength to carry Dib to the neighboring room, much less drag him to his feet. It was pathetic, but he could accept his limits. They were temporary. Just as his painstakingly slow farming experiment was temporary. He would improve his PAK into something better than it was; he just needed the parts.

Yes, that's all I need. I can do this.

Dib rubbed at his eyes, trudging to the door. He was moving slower than Zim had anticipated, even taking his exhaustion into account. Now that he thought of it, he wasn't sure when Dib had slept last. He hadn't exactly been keeping track, and asking Dib now wasn't going to yield much of an answer. Gaz was already passed out somewhere else. The Computer had informed him hours ago that she'd fallen asleep playing a game. Honestly, it wasn't that surprising. Games seemed to be her go-to for anything and everything. Whether it be to relax or avoid something, he noticed.

Dib collapsed to the mattress first. He slipped off his glasses and let them drop to the floor with nary a thought. Zim grabbed a nearby blanket and threw it over him.

"You're staying," Dib mumbled into the pillows.

"I'm not planning to leave," Zim assured him. He'd been debating it, but he was still very much tethered to the base, so his options were severely limited. He'd have Dib go on his errand for him in the morning.

He laid beside him, almost melting into the nest of pillows that Dib and Gaz had constructed for the air mattress. He'd let slip just once that when he did sleep, it was almost never with a pillow. Half the time he just slumped over a desk so he could get right back to work once he woke up. He wasn't sure why that'd caused such an overreaction at the time-he was fairly certain Dib had almost deafened him-but, it had resulted in one of the most comfortable additions to the base. He wasn't sure that humans didn't 'nest', as Dib was adamant to insist. If this was their idea of it, whether they called it that or not, he wasn't questioning them for being so eager to have an excuse to make one.

Why they'd need an excuse is beyond me, Zim thought. Dib was already lightly snoring beside him. No 'good night', no idle small talk, no idiotic questions… just unconscious.

The boy was more exhausted than he'd originally thought… He was going to have to find a solution to that at some point. He couldn't have Dib staying awake alongside him if this was the result. Matching an Irken's sleep schedule would kill him before he ever got close to being in sync with Zim as he was now. If he tried to sync with how often the siblings slept, he would never get any work done. Maybe he could craft some sort of energy supplement.

Zim laid there for a while, staring up at the ceiling. In truth, he wasn't tired. He was exhausted, yes, but it wasn't the exhaustion that called for sleep. It was in his muscles and bones, and entirely the fault of his faulty PAK. He was dreading the diagnostics run he was going to do in the morning. He glanced at Dib's watch, gently tilting the wrist it was on to get a better look at the time. While he wasn't sure how long he'd been laying there, it was almost three in the morning. Zim sighed, turning back to glower at the ceiling. It was thoroughly uncomfortable with the chord connecting him to the base, but not enough to make him readjust just yet.

The silence was deafening-a turn of phrase that he'd scoffed at when he'd first read it. But this, an almost indescribably heavy pressure that weighed down around him that somehow, unbeknownst for now to him, had a subtle but constant sound. It wasn't quite a rumble, as it was too consistent, but it was far from a buzz. It was thick. It felt as if it was closing in, slowly, much like molasses, onto his senses. He sat up, relishing in the sound of the shifting blankets and the creak of the mattress springs. It was followed almost immediately by a scoff deep in his throat that he was relieved by such a simple thing.

He'd not spoken with either sibling about the entity past voicing his distaste of its continued existence. Dib had been searching endlessly for a blind priest; and he'd been adamant to emphasize they had to be blind, and an exorcist. Zim shook his head, pinching his brow. That was not going to happen anytime soon. From what Dib had shared over the years, as far as Zim could discern, the US didn't have that many "legitimate" exorcists in comparison to other nations, much less a blind one. Zim had searched on the base's computer as Dib had hyper-fixated on his search, and it hadn't looked promising. Less than 200 priests were thought to actually practice exorcism.

Given how big the country was; Dib was sifting through the hay with no hope of finding his needle.

If he were frank, Zim didn't care what Dib did with that thing or who he'd bring it to. It might be more likely that Dib find a priest who simply knew how to be quiet. He just wanted it gone. While it hadn't been able to feed off any of them, as far as they could discern, he was not recovering his energy as fast as he'd like. Whether it was all that bastard's fault or whether it was worsened by the state of his PAK… it didn't really matter.

Nothing really mattered, except fixing the PAK.

He clenched the blanket, his claws digging holes through it and into his palms. His hands were trembling and he grit his teeth, trying to stamp down the desire to start tearing into his own base's walls again. He hadn't set foot on that side of the base again, and he had no desire to do so anytime soon. It would be best if he just blocked it off. Zim laid back down, harshly curling into the blankets and scowling at the wall.

He wasn't sure if he'd slept while he laid there. He only snapped back to present reality when Dib started to shift on his side of the mattress. Zim sat up first, folding the blanket over to hide the claw marks.

"Finally done being unconscious?" he asks.

"I've never been more jealous of your sleep schedule…" Dib groaned, stretching. He yawned, putting his glasses back on. "It's like the extreme opposite of a cat."

"Hnnng…"

Dib watched Zim drag his feet back to the lab, directly to the PAK. He rolled the blanket up and dropped it on the mattress before joining him, plugging his now dead laptop in to charge. Dib leaned on the edge of the desk, watching Zim as he organized the pieces of the PAK. He couldn't even begin to comprehend the complexity that the PAK held within such an unassuming shell, but it was endlessly fascinating and picked at his curiosity constantly. He would have to try and examine the old PAK at some point to try and satisfy said curiosity to some degree.

For now, though, he had other plans for the morning. Dib turned away and grabbed the jar. Zim's antenna flicked at the clink of the glass on the desk and he turned to Dib immediately. Dib gestured towards the door with the jar.

"I'm taking it to my house for now," he says. "I thought about it, and I don't like it being here, either. At least at my place there's nothing for it to latch on to."

"If you're leaving, then you can do something for me," Zim says, beckoning him closer.

"Oh?" Dib asks, sounding a little more eager than he should have.

Honestly, this boy… Zim thought. He slid a piece of paper across the table. Dib pulled it closer. The address far across town, with a few hours' time frame. "It will not be Desmond this time. It will be the large one. Trudy."

"I'm shocked you actually remembered her name," Dib mumbled.

"You will need to know it," Zim says, his tone deliberate.

"Uh… is she gonna try to crush me…?" Dib says with a short laugh.

"It will surely give the encounter a better start," Zim says. "Beware of her hugs."

"What weirdo is hugging my brother?" Gaz asks between great, big yawns.

"No one important," Zim says boredly. Gaz hummed, walking over to the ruined PAK. She grimaced at it, turning towards Zim. He plugged the new PAK into the computer, starting up the diagnostics run.

Gaz glowered at the screen, tapping her finger on her arm in a steady rhythm. "All this because you didn't get a firmware update?"

More like a contingency timer… Dib thought bitterly.

"I'm improving on a clearly flawed design," Zim says with a smirk. Gaz snorted, taking a seat beside him.

"I'm headed out," Dib announced. "Text me if you want me to pick up anything!"

"Sure, sure," Gaz waved him off. "Hey, put that thing in the Ghostbuster while you're at it!"

"The what?"

"One of his nerd inventions."

Dib entered the house with a headache. He couldn't quite recall when he'd been in the house last, but a quick glance at the layer of dust on the coffee table told him enough. He paused at the coat closet, opening it to find the robot their father had invented to clean up after them still in its charging dock. He lifted it out, letting it power on before letting go and setting it for a 'basic tidy'. It floated away, scanning the rooms for assessment.

He disappeared to his room, shutting the door behind him. There was the same defined layer of dust in his room as well. He would deal with it later. Gaz and he had programed the bot to remain outside their rooms and his lab in the basement almost immediately. In terms of Gaz's room it was more for the safety of the robot than any privacy. He reached under his bed, pulling out a metal case. Inside the space was largely empty, save for some coils and a metal basic. He held the jar over it. It was just barely small enough to fit into the basin. He shut the lid once it was firmly in place, turning the case on its side so the jar sat naturally inside. He calibrated it with some moderate difficulty.

He hadn't used the machine in so long; he was just grateful that it still turned on. He slid it under the desk, out of the way and partially out of sight. He caught sight of tape on the back and shifted it briefly to see. 'GHOSTBUSTER' was crudely written on the piece of painters table. He snorted, pushing it back into place. He would just come back for it later once he'd actually found a blind priest. He'd been searching every database he could think off, and Googling a fair bit of different key phrases, to try and find some sort of registry that would list one. Even if he'd found one in passing, he wasn't sure if official church websites would list if their priest was blind.

His next best guess was to try and hit up demon and exorcism forums. The Swollen Eyeball was his last resort. He started to wonder if he should try and search on foot before he tried asking anyone in the agency. The metal case beeped at him, indicating it was locked and sealed. He sighed, cracking his neck and shaking out the trench coat with newfound relief. He checked the battery life of the case and grimaced. Max it had a few hours. He spent the next few minutes searching for the charge chord, turning his desk drawers inside out until he finally found it thrown into a random box. He plugged it in and left the house.

Once in his vehicle he checked the address Zim had given him. Across town. Of course. He sighed, resting his head on the steering wheel. After a moment of collecting his resolve, he pulled out of the driveway.

The house was in a suburb, practically outside of city limits, not just across town like Dib had initially thought. This was far worse. It would take him over an hour to drive back to the base. He pulled just behind the mailbox. The house was… bright. Painted a garish yellow, with lawn decorations scattered throughout the garden and along the sidewalk. Most were typical decorations - lawn gnomes (he narrowed his eyes at them before he'd even realized what he was doing), flamingos, flower windmills, chimes, and various UFO or alien-based decorations.

How am I supposed to be inconspicuous with this?!

Dib groaned, banging his head on the steering wheel. He should have interrogated Zim more before he left. The Irken was doing far better now than he had been when Dib had first snuck into the base and seen… his tantrum. Rampage, Dib corrected himself. He'd seen Zim throw tantrums. That was nothing short of murderous - it wouldn't have surprised Dib if he'd been told he'd used up the rest of his cache of luck for the year in order to not be caught in that moment. He breathed in deeply. If he ever saw The Tallest, he was handling them right then and there. Perhaps he should invest in a gun.

He climbed out of the truck, prepping himself for anything he might see once he knocked on the door. As he got closer, he could see around the short corner of the porch where the front door actually sat. It was bright red, with white polka dots. A small alien was painted peeking out from behind the small window on the top. Cute.

He knocked, forcing a fake smile. The woman who answered a moment later regarded him only a moment before recognition hit her.

"Hi, Trudy-"

"Oh, you remember my name!" Trudy cheered, swinging open the door and grabbing Dib in a hug. He let out a pained grunt as she swung him inside. "You are such a doll. Perfect for our savior, of course. I have just what you're looking for. Desmond told me everything."

She set Dib down on the couch - a garish floral pattern that looked straight out of any stereotypical grandmother's home.

"Wait right here a moment, I'll go get it."

Dib sat there, shocked into silence, as she disappeared down the hall. He took a quick look around the room. The walls, the shelves, the tables-everything was covered in knick-knacks of aliens, UFOs, various other cryptids, fairies, gnomes, and pieces that were otherwise out of place. And clocks. A lot of clocks, of various styles. From what he could see of the dining room where he sat, there were clocks lining the wall in there as well. Most of them weren't moving, still and dead.

"Pack rat…" Dib mumbled.

"I was so overjoyed when he called upon me!" Trudy announced when she returned. She carried a large box with her, setting it down on the coffee table. Just under half of it was off the edge because of the space already taken up by the tea set on that side.

"O-Oh?"

"Of course! He's such a powerful being, after all. And I've been waiting eagerly since that fateful day in the park to serve him."

"I'll be sure to let him know how eagerly you've been waiting," Dib says.

He glanced down to the box, a familiar figure catching his gaze on the table. A small clay figure of Zim, uniform and all (crudely made and fired with the glaze completely wrong, destroying the intentionally shiny finish), was set up in the center of the table. Alongside it was the pig disguise for the Voot, set up on a clear, acrylic stand to appear as if it was levitating.

Oh Christ, no.

"Oh… thank you! You are so sweet. Do you want a cookie? I just made some last night."

"I would, but I have to get back to him," Dib says, grabbing the box and shifting it to his lap. "I have other errands to run today, too."

"You'll be seeing him first, though… right?" Trudy asks, leaning down. Dib fought back a shiver and a gulp. He nodded, holding her gaze.

"Yep. First thing is delivering this! I swear," Dib says. Trudy regarded him in silence for several moments. He gripped the edges of the box tighter.

"….Well!" Trudy patted him on the back, lurching him forward. "I'm so relieved that he has such a loyal ser-oh, comrade?"

"Yeah."

"Excellent! Oh, do let him know I'm always sending messages. I do hope he's getting them. I don't have a way to receive, but, I can send all day!"

"Oh, of course! I'll check on that."

"Thank you!"

"Yep," Dib stood, shuffling towards the door. "Well, goodbye! I hope you have a great day!"

"Oh, you, too! Do come back whenever you need, I'll be happy to help!"

"YEP! THANK YOU!" Dib practically ran to the car.

He could see Trudy waving at him from the window. He ignored it, driving down the street painstakingly slow, despite going the speed limit. He didn't breathe normally once more until he was sure that the house was out of sight. No way in goddamn hell was he going back there again, ever. Zim could send him back to Desmond all he wanted - Dib could at least hide out behind the dumpsters there.

This had better been worth it.

Zim tapped the screwdriver on the desk. Gaz had left him after he'd turned down an offering of a gaming tournament until Dib returned. He almost had half a mind to kick her out before she'd left on her own, griping the whole way out the door. He wasn't a fool. He knew what she was doing. Dib tried to distract him with documentaries and movies he could freely mock. Gaz tried to distract him with extreme violence in video games.

He didn't need distraction. He didn't need to distract from his thoughts. He needed results. He needed solutions.

He sighed, setting the tool down and pushing away from the desk. He couldn't do anything else with the PAK until Dib got back, anyway. He slowly made his way through the base until he reached where they'd left Gir. He picked him off the shelf, setting him down at the table and dusting him off.

Thinking back on it… it was too quiet in the base.

He flipped Gir on. His eyes lit up red and he shot up, saluting and greeting Zim in the programed fashion. The programming was immediately overridden, as always, and the blue eyes returned.

"MASTAH!"

"Hello, Gir," Zim sighed, already feeling the dull throb of a headache threatening him. His antennae twitched, towards the doorway. He could hardly focus enough to bother looking to see what he knew was likely just The Computer moving the breakables out of sight and out of reach of the newly awakened tornado before him.

Don't turn him off, don't turn him off, don't turn him off.

Gir bounced off the table, racing around the room to inspect every inch. He luckily put whatever he picked up right back where he'd found it immediately. It was nothing more than a quick scan of the items before he moved on. Zim sat back and watched him for a while. Simply taking in the massive burst of energy that Gir exuded was starting to bring some energy back into himself. He wouldn't go so far as to claim that it was lifting his mood, but the base already felt more alive with Gir bouncing off the walls.

"Gir."

Gir halted mid bounce, ending up on his head, rotating until he could see Zim. "Hmmmmm?"

Zim rolled his chair closer, leaning on the counter so that he was face to face with Gir. "You're always so…" Zim pouted in thought and furrowed his brow. There was a myriad of synonyms coming to mind, but none seemed to match what he was thinking. He eventually settled to the closest alternative once he noticed Gir starting to twitch in boredom. "You're happy."

"Of course, Mastah! I always am!"

"But why?" Zim pressed. His antennae twitched again. He growled, swiping them back with a quick thrash of his hand. It stung, and it grated at his senses, leaving him with little to do to alleviate it. He dragged his hand down his face. "You're a SIR unit. You're not meant to have a wide range of emotions as servant AI. So why?"

Gir fell onto his back and hopped back onto his feet with no indication he took Zim's words harshly. Like they'd gone right through the little robot's head. Gir turned to him, smile wide, and cupped Zim's cheeks. "Because I have you!"

"…..What."

"Because I have you, Mastah!" Gir repeats easily.

There was a pain in Zim's chest. It was deep in his core, radiating out. He pulled away, shaking off Gir's grip. Something else… there's something else. "No, that can't be it."

"Of course it is."

"How can you say that so easily?!" Zim spat, pounding his fists on the table. Gir shook with the force, falling back to sit on the counter. He laughed, scooting forward until he was close enough to pat Zim's cheek.

"Because it's true."

Zim stared at him a long moment. He wrapped his arms around Gir, leaning back in his chair and taking the bot with him in a hug, like he was a stuffed toy. Gir giggled, wriggling around in Zim's grip until he eventually settled. Zim rested his chin on Gir's head.

"Do you think…" he began, "That's why those two haven't left, yet?"

"Mmmmmmmm," Gir hummed in a high pitch that had Zim's antenna flattening on his skull. He'd had him off too long if he wasn't used to it anymore. "Don't know! But I like them here!"

Zim sighed. "At least you're honest," he grumbles, releasing his hold and letting Gir slide to the floor. "Go bug Gaz."

"Whoopie!" Gir flew from the room-literally-leaving a smoke trail behind him. Zim gagged on the smoke, coughing and throwing a random piece of metal sheeting after him.

"GIR!" he roared.

Gir's giggling from the far end of the hall answered back, disappearing as he went deeper into the base's maze of corridors. Zim groaned, rolling back towards the PAK. He leaned over the table, tapping at it uselessly. His brain couldn't even focus enough to decide on where to pick his work back up. Thinking about Dib or Gaz leaving, and not coming back, made his insides twist in a way that he hadn't felt since his final transmission with the Tallest. His hands mindlessly grasped a tool each. His chest felt heavy.

"They've some interesting nightmares. Especially Glasses."

Zim furrowed his brow, dropping one tool to rub at his eyes. The entity was gone but…

"So many about you; it's so interesting!"

The goddamn smile.

He threw the tool across the room. It clattered loudly against the wall, bouncing off and knocking several scraps off the table edge. Zim sat there, listening to the falling and clattering scraps until the ringing sounds echoed out into silence again. After a pause, there was a soft knock at the door.

"Hey."

Zim's antenna shot up, twitching towards the door. He turned to see Gaz lean on the frame, crossing her arms. Her hair was a mess of bed head, and her pjs were wrinkled beyond comprehension. Zim fiddled with the tools at his fingertips.

"Hey."

Gaz rolled her eyes, pushing off the frame and moving to his side. She leaned on the table instead. "You're upset."

"What an astute observation," Zim grumbled. Gaz regarded him a second. Rather than smack him upside the head as he expected, she pulled up a stool to sit beside him.

"Talk. Dib says it helps. So, you can talk to me, or you can talk to him," Gaz says. At Zim's silence she painfully jabbed him in the arm, earning herself a hiss. "Talk."

"I do not want to talk," Zim spat. "Is that not obvious?"

"Well, like I said. It's me or Dib. Which do you think would be less annoying?" Gaz asks, raising a brow. Zim sighed, resting his forehead on the table.

Stubborn and ignoble, both of them! he thought wryly.

"You're both insufferable…" he mumbled.

Gaz didn't respond. She tapped her finger on the table in a measured rhythm. Zim's antenna twitched once in the following silence. Zim groaned loudly. He sat up, roughly resting his arms on the table and resting his chin on them. She wasn't moving, much less making a sound. He had the horrific suspicion that Gir was fruitlessly flying around the base looking for her. The words were stuck at the back of his throat. He clenched his body, looking away from her.

"You both are afraid of me."

While relief came with the words, his anxiety was just as heavy. She wasn't speaking. She could walk out of the room or the base and he couldn't even go after her in this state. He couldn't keep her there. He couldn't keep either of them there. Even if he locked down the base, Dib had years of experience finding a way out of it, even on a lock down. Did that thing get in their heads as much as it got into his?

"What did it show you?" he asks.

Gaz set her hand on his arm, rubbing with her thumb. "I didn't think you were worried about that…"

"Which one?"

"Either," Gaz admitted. "Are you afraid of us?"

"That's laughable."

"Ha! Typical," Gaz says with a snort. She idly swung her leg for a few moments. "…You know, you haven't mentioned what it showed you, either."

Zim grimaced. "I don't want to."

"Neither do I. But…" she shrugged. "I'm not scared of you."

"…"

"I'm not. Dib isn't, either," Gaz says. Zim's antennae twitched.

Liar.

"….I know," Zim says.

"And are you okay?" she asks.

"I'm fine," Zim says.

His insides coiled uncomfortably. His thoughts drifting away from the siblings, turning back on himself. Filthy liar. He closed his eyes, clenching the hand hidden away from Gaz's view. Cowardly liar…